Electric Avenue
Are electric race bikes the future?
Ten years ago, the thought of having fast electric race bikes would’ve been enough to secure a one-way ticket into a loony asylum. Yet here we are now, delving into the state of electric motors on the eve of them having their own world championship alongside the MotoGP circus. Yep, every single petrol-head is fuming at the thought that one day, the glorious sound of internal combustion will be replaced by the quiet electric whine you’d expect from a Toyota Prius. But let’s have a little think… is it all bad?
Yes, there’s no talk from the motor, but they’re torquey as hell. Okay, there’s no smell, but your missus wouldn’t have an excuse to bust your balls if you wanted to bring it into the front room. And okay, they’re pretty darn heavy, but surely within the next ten years or so we can rely on the brains of the manufacturers to work some R&D magic, right? Well, that’s what we like to think here at FB anyway, as the current range of electric sports bikes on the market hasn’t really set the world alight – unless you crash one and it catches fire, of course. With that being said, it really isn’t all bad.
Take the TT Zero as an example. Eight years ago, the winning lap time was 23 minutes and 22 seconds, whereas this year, it was just 18 minutes and 34 seconds. That might not blow your mind, but in reailty the average speed is almost 25mph quicker, whereas in eight years of the Superbike or Senior, the average speed has increased by under 5mph. So, for argument’s sake, if that progress continued even at a much slower rate, in six years’s time the average would be quicker than the Superbikes, and that’s a real scary thought. The road bikes might be a fair few years off ,but at least there’s hope that if one day our beloved oil supply does ever dry out, electric motors will help us feed our need for speed.
With this in mind, we caught up with the brains behind the five-time TT Zero winning and current lap record-holding outfit Mugen, to see what’s under the skin of these rapid electric racers, what goes into creating one, and what the future holds.